John J. O'Keefe III

OVERVIEW & LEGAL HISTORY SUMMARY

John J. O'Keefe III (December 8, 1975 – January 29, 2022) was a 46-year-old resident of Canton, Massachusetts, and a 16-year veteran officer with the Boston Police Department. Following the deaths of his sister and brother-in-law, O'Keefe served as guardian for his orphaned niece and nephew. At the time of his death, he had been in a romantic relationship with Karen Read since 2020. On the night of January 28, 2022, O'Keefe socialized with Read and acquaintances at C.F. McCarthy's and the Waterfall Bar and Grill in Canton. Shortly after midnight on January 29, Read drove O'Keefe to an afterparty at 34 Fairview Road, the residence of fellow Boston Police Officer Brian Albert. At 6:00 a.m. during a heavy snowstorm, Read and companions discovered O'Keefe unresponsive in a snowbank on the front lawn. Emergency medical personnel dispatched O'Keefe to Good Samaritan Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 7:59 a.m. An autopsy concluded cause of death to be blunt force trauma to the head and hypothermia. O'Keefe's death triggered two high-profile state murder trials against Read, resulting in her acquittal on all homicide charges in June 2025. In August 2024, O'Keefe's surviving family members filed a wrongful death civil lawsuit against Read and Canton commercial establishments.